


The Carpe Felis Series

by audreyii_fic



Series: The Carpe Felis Series [1]
Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Babies, Episode Related, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Pregnancy, Romantic Comedy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 13:47:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreyii_fic/pseuds/audreyii_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heat can really screw up an already screwed up relationship. Begins during the S2 episode "Borrowed Time".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Carpe Felis

**Carpe Felis** _  
(seize the cat)_

_  
_

* * *

 

_and the base keeps running, running…  
The Black Eyed Peas, "Let's Get It Started"_

_  
_

* * *

 

Nothing beats beating people at Crash, whether it be at pool, at drinking, or at life in general.

 

"Thanks for playing… it's always a pleasure." I chuckled. It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. I think I read that somewhere, or maybe I made it up. "Who's next? Anybody? Sketchy! Whaddaya say, buddy?" Sketchy was a perennial victim, unable to accept that he couldn't win, bless him. Forget the bioengineered gene sequences advantage – after four beers, Sketchy had problems hitting the cue ball.

 

"Naw, man, I already owe you two paychecks." Actually, he owed me three – but since I was trying to get him to go to four, I felt this was not the prudent time to bring that up.

 

"'I'll let you break." Not that that would help.

 

"No… no," Sketchy said, more firmly.

 

"I'll play left-handed," I offered, seriously. "You can blindfold me." Okay, that one would get a little trickier, but I'm sure I could figure it out.

 

"No, man."

 

"No? Okay." Supposedly, for all his failings at pool, Sketchy was a monster when it came to bike tricks – sooner or later, I'd get around to beating him at that, too. Hey, I can't help it that I'm this good. My gaze slid to Max.

 

"Nobody likes a showoff, Alec," she murmured, smirking at me from lidded eyes. She looked good – very good – tonight, in a black tank top with flushed skin. Did she always look this good? Probably. Or maybe the light over the pool table was particularly flattering. Hard to know.

 

I fought the urge to lick my lips. "Maaax…" She smiled. "C'mon, fifty bucks, and you get to humble your old buddy Alec." I slid the fifty into my back pocket. In the unlikely – no, make that nigh-impossible — event that she did win, I would make her get the fifty herself. "Whaddaya say?" Was it hot in here?

 

"Yeah, right." The warmth that was almost there a moment ago vanished.

 

"Well, thanks anyway." I hid my disappointment. Wouldn't do to give her too much cause to feel righteous. "Anybody? You? You? You? C'mon!" I mean, sure, I'd just won six games in a row, but still… I felt like proving something tonight. "It's not that diff—" I paused. "Logan." I slammed down the chalk on the edge of the table.

 

Logan looked up from his papers in mild annoyance. Well, too bad – if he wanted to work, he should have stayed home. "Whaddaya say, pal? Play me in a little game of pool?" I kept my voice light, but he knew what I meant and I knew he knew. I didn't have to turn my head to know that Max was perking up in interest.

 

"Oh. Uh…" He glanced over at Max. That's right, loverboy. Let's keep this in perspective. "I break?"

 

"Yeah." I'd give that much to him.

 

There was a long pause, with Max watching us both. I straightened my back in response.

 

Finally… "Rack 'em."

 

I laughed, and heard Max mutter "Move over" to Sketchy. As I racked up the balls, my skin tingled – here, a chance on a level playing field (well, mostly level) to show up Mister I Only Screw The Bad Guys Eyes Only. And in front of Max, no less.

 

A very quiet alarm bell sounded somewhere in the back of my mind, but I had more important things to worry about.

 

Logan broke, and sank the one ball in the far corner. Lucky of him, but I whistled for effect anyway, and backed away from the table as he moved to take another shot. No reason to come off as overconfident.

 

Thunk. That one sank nicely too.

 

Logan gave me a small smirk. Huh. Pool shark. And Max was watching him. Watching him _and_ smiling.

 

That was unacceptable.

 

When he ducked down to line up his third shot, I went with him, checking the angle… and, incidentally, blocking him from Max's view. "Alec?" he said, focusing on the cue ball.

 

"Yeah?" The picture of innocence, that's me.

 

"Could you stand back?" Heh… now Logan was annoyed. Too bad for him. But I backed off anyway. No reason not to make this a fair fight – I didn't need to cheat to win.

 

Although I was tempted to reevaluate that standpoint, when another solid ball dropped in the pocket. "Well, well… not too shabby." As he took aim, I nonchalantly smiled, "Get you another beer?" Hey, no one said friendly conversation was cheating.

 

"No." But he missed the shot anyway. Finally.

 

I heard Sketchy over my shoulder – "He's going to run it now." Yeah. You better believe it. I sunk shot after shot, and Max's dark eyes were back on me, where they belonged. Doesn't do any good to have all this extra DNA if you can't use it against your rivals once in a while.

 

_Rivals._

 

Wait.

 

Shit.

 

I paused in the middle of lining up a shot, looking up at Max from the opposite end of the table. She was glancing back and forth between me and Logan, shifting her hips in her seat. Measuring. Evaluating. Judging who was going to defeat the other. Looking for the alpha male.

 

Taking a deep, shuddery breath, I caught the scent in the air for the first time and wondered why the hell it had taken me so long to realize. Why hadn't I figured it out, when she walked in the room and suddenly I wanted to humiliate everything with testosterone in a mile radius? More than usual?

 

Max was in heat. Early stages, yes, but still undeniably in heat.

 

Twisting desire knotted in my stomach, kept in check only by anger. What the hell was she thinking, coming out in public like this? How irresponsible could she be? I dropped my cue stick on the table, knocking balls out of the way, to Logan's audible surprise and the groans of our disappointed audience. Too bad, guys. "Your game, Logan," I said evenly, keeping my eyes on Max.

 

"What?" Well, Logan wasn't stupid, but it probably didn't take a genius to notice that I was suddenly looking at Max like she was lunch. A stupid, irresponsible, infuriating lunch. And she… well, I wouldn't go so far to say she was returning the favor, but she didn't look uncomfortable. Curious, mostly, about the sudden change.

 

Curiosity killed the cat, Maxie. I peeled off five tens from my roll of bills and slapped them down on the table. "I said, your game. I'm done." Logan was speechless, but beating him at pool was a problem for another time. In the meantime…

 

In the meantime, I needed to get myself under control. And get Max out of here, before some other less reserved transgenic caught wind of her, before she went into full-fledged cycle and killed Logan trying to get some action, before I stripped her naked and bent her over the pool table. Wait… under control. Yes. Under control.

 

I approached Max carefully, and tried to remember to breathe through my mouth. No doubt I looked pretty stupid. Stopping about two feet short of her, I said "Can I talk to you for a moment? Outside?" Calm. Very calm.

 

Her eyes were already turned back to Logan, who was watching us with great interest. Normal males weren't unaffected by pheromones either, but if it was really going to come down to a contest of 'Who wants to fuck Max more, right now, here on the pool table, in front of God and Original Cindy and the good bartenders of Crash', I was going to win hands down. Feline DNA beats out human DNA for pheromone reaction any day of the week. "Sorry," she purred, already beginning to dismiss me, "I'm busy."

 

Oh, no you don't. I grabbed her wrist, lightning fast, and squeezed hard. "I insist." That got her attention back.

 

OC's arm was already curling protectively around her shoulder, but Max shrugged it off, angry now and still curious. Good girl. "Fine. Let's get some fresh air." I released her, and she hopped off the barstool and sauntered away in high indignation, hips swinging. Oblivious to Logan's confusion and OC's worry and my… well…

 

Fresh air. Yes.

 

And fresh air really did help – outside, it was possible to think clearly, without the music pounding and Max's scent mixed with smoke. Apparently it was a little easier for the lady (hah!) in question to think, too, because the first thing she did was smack me. "You idiot! That hurt!" She examined the wrist I had grabbed, already beginning to turn black and blue. After a quick once-over to make sure nothing was broken, she hit me again. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

 

"What the hell is wrong with _me?_ " I asked, incredulous. She was kidding, right? "I'm not the one out parading around Seattle in heat!"

 

Well, that certainly got to her. She stopped, very still, eyes wide as though I'd just pulled a rabbit out of a thimble. "What?"

 

"Do you think you're the only one with feline DNA?" I advanced on her, mostly unconsciously, and she stepped backward to keep her distance. Four feet apart wasn't going to be far enough, if she wanted to get away from me. "I can _smell_ you, Max." And an intoxicating smell it was, too.

 

She took another step back, bumping into the brick façade. "Don't look at me like that," she said, voice small.

 

The sight of her cowering was enough to snap me out of it. Whatever an effect Max was having on me (and oh, was she having an effect on me), she wasn't far gone enough yet to find a game of cat and mouse arousing. And I wasn't far gone enough yet to find her fear anything less than unsettling. Max needed to be afraid, yes – but not of me.

 

I rolled my eyes heavenward, wishing for a nice, cold rain. Figures it would be the one night of the year that Seattle was fifty degrees and cloudless. "Right. Sorry."

 

"It's… affecting you, too?" she asked hesitantly. I laughed harshly, not daring to look at her, or to answer properly. "But it doesn't… it hasn't really even gotten started yet…"

 

"Doesn't matter," I said simply. Amazing, what she didn't know about her own body. "You missed Manticore sex-ed. Should have stuck around a few more years, there was a lot left to learn."

 

"Yeah, I bet it was a blast," Max said dryly, finding more familiar footing. Banter. That we can do. But now wasn't the time.

 

I backed away from her, stepped aside, and allowed her free access to the street. "You have to go home now, Max. Stay out much longer, and you're going to be very popular."

 

Her eyes flickered with uncertainty, and that touch of fear. "The others… they'll smell me too?" I repressed a sigh of impatience. There was a lot she didn't understand. Hell, she probably hadn't even had sex with another X-5, since the only ones she'd been in contact with were her so-called "brothers". Didn't know how freeing it was, to not hold back—

 

Wait. No. Bad Alec. Not a good line of thought. "The males with cat DNA sure as hell will. Most of the X-5s, some of the X-4s and X-6s, who knows what else." Now she looked downright scared, and this time, of the right thing. Good. Time to grow up, realize what was really going on in the big, bad world. "But only if you keep barhopping. So go home, lock your doors, close your windows, don't come out again until it's over, and you should be fine. No one will know."

 

"And… they would all be affected like you." It was a statement, not a question, but I felt compelled to answer anyway.

 

"Not all like me, but more or less. They can't all be like me," I grinned. She wouldn't get that lucky.

 

Max turned to me slowly, a small smile on her full lips. Max smiling in this situation was bad, I was sure, but I couldn't remember why all of the sudden. I could feel the fresh burn of hormones. This time, she did the advancing, steady, and I did the retreating, right back into the brick wall. Not good. Big warning bells. "Well, you don't seem to be so bad," she purred, reaching up to touch my face.

 

Anger flared again – what, so she was going to seduce me now? This was too much. She didn't get it, and she needed to get it. It was the work of a moment, to grab her hand and pull her to me, flush and close. There was no way she couldn't feel my erection against her stomach, since by now it was using up a lot more blood than my brain. I leaned in, inhaled her scent (not all pheromones) and bit her sharply on the shoulder.

 

The fog lifted, for her at least, momentarily. "Ow!" Max pushed away from me, and cool night air filled the void.

 

"In an hour you won't find that nearly so unappealing," I growled. Yeah, growled. This was what she'd reduced me to, the bitch. I don't like being reduced. "Now go home before you find out what else you won't find unappealing."

 

We stared at each other, and for a moment I wondered if this night was going to end with us fucking against a graffitied brick wall in a crowded street. And whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

 

"Boo?"

 

Original Cindy was better than a bucket of cold ice water.

 

"Yeah," Max replied evenly, backing off. Damn her for managing a normal tone of voice. I wasn't sure I could manage English right now. "We have to go home now." And she turned and walked away, back towards OC and the light from Crash, away from me. I had the feeling that was going to be a recurring theme.

 

* * *

 

_all my sins / i swear that I would pay for them if i could  
Counting Crows, "Angels of the Silences"_

_  
_

* * *

 

Amazing, the things two bottles of whiskey can accomplish.

 

Well, two bottles of whiskey and a few cold showers.

 

I managed to make it home all right – once Max left, the air cleared and coherent thought became possible again. Not that I wasn't phenomenally horny. The idea of going back inside Crash and finding some nice pliant female to take the edge off certainly had its charm.

 

Taking the edge off wasn't really going to cut it, though. A tipsy, warm woman would be nice, but compared to the raw animal need that had rolled off Max in waves…

 

Well, why have Spam when you want filet mignon?

 

Regardless, the filet mignon was off-limits, for all kinds of reasons. Smell, but don't taste, and all that. So I made do with whiskey and the showers, and was now myself again, more or less. If slightly inebriated. Cruel joke of Manticore's, to set up the X-5s with the alcohol tolerance of elephants. Great for a drinking contest, but not much help when all I wanted was to stay in an alcoholic stupor for, say, the next two days.

 

So there I was, flopped back on the couch, counting cracks in the ceiling, wondering whether it was too soon to take another cold shower. Pathetic.

 

The heats weren't another cruel joke of Manticore's, that much was certain. No, their perfectly engineered soldiers wanting to rut like animals was an unfortunate side effect of forgetting _why_ cats want to jump over fences and run fast and beat the hell out of animals many times their size.

 

Cats don't do those things to be good soldiers. They do it because they want mates.

 

And, boy, had Manticore had one hell of a surprise when the X-5 females turned thirteen. After they figured out what was going on, they had nearly all of the girls fixed. Problem solved. Much to the disappointment of the X-5 males, including yours truly.

 

At least we'd had the benefit of an explanation, of sorts, from the doctors at Manticore. What had happened to Max, the first time? She would have been scared, certainly, but did she hide, or did she get her problem taken care of? Was one of her "brothers" around?

 

I moaned. Nice job. Way to keep your mind on the clandestine, Alec. Must be sobering up. Time for more whiskey. I was half-way to the kitchen when the phone rang.

 

Frowning, I checked the caller-ID. Original Cindy's cell. Why was she calling at three in the morning? Had Max escaped? "Alec. What's up?"

 

The voice on the other end was frazzled, and mad. Very mad. "Boy, what the hell did ya do to my boo?"

 

Jeez. Everyone always assumed things were my fault, when truth be told, it was only my fault about half the time. "I didn't do anything." Unfortunately. "She's having an estrus cycle. Get her a couple double Ds and she'll be fine. Manticore—"

 

"—fixed her up with kitty genes, I know that, fool," OC said impatiently. "That she was in heat Original Cindy could figure out by her lonesome. What I want to know is why she's runnin' around, stuffin' rags under the doors, askin'—"

 

"Is that Alec?"

 

It wasn't hard to catch Max's purr in the background. I, in contrast, became extremely hard. Funny, how that works.

 

"Ah," I swallowed, trying to articulate. Smooth. "Is she asking for me?"

 

"Yeah. You, Logan, Sketchy, Normal, and every other member of the three legged race." Now, was my name at the top of that list for a reason? Please, let my name be at the top of that list for a reason.

 

"Probably you shouldn't let her near Logan." I wasn't going to smirk. Really. Okay, maybe I did, but it was an accident. I swear.

 

"No shit, Sherlock."

 

Max in the background again. "Let me talk to him. Please?"

 

She was pleading.

 

For me.

 

There was a rustle that meant OC's hand had covered the receiver, but I still heard her say, "I don't think that's such a hot idea, boo. Drop and give me thirty, now." Another rustle, and OC's clearer voice – "So what am I supposed to do? I'm gonna die of asphyxiation if Max don't let me open a window."

 

I barely registered her question. So Max was doing push ups to work through it. Getting sweaty, moving up and down… "You shouldn't have called me, OC," I rasped. "Call someone else. Call anybody else. Not me."

 

"Why? What's your dealio?" Okay, I was not explaining again. If I made it through this in one piece, Max was going to have to host a 'Trannies and Friends of Trannies' sex-ed meeting. Maybe with live demonstrations…

 

Damn. "Maybe I should come over," I heard myself say, totally independently of my brain. My brain had relinquished control when I heard Max say 'please'. "You know… extra hands." Extra tongue, extra—

 

OC snapped me back to reality. "Boy, if I see your pretty face over here tryin' to mack on my boo, I'm gonna smack it with a frying pan, you got it?"

 

I was busy trying to figure out whether a frying pan was likely to break my nose, and how much a broken nose would slow me down, when I heard a thud and a screech on the other end of the line. A few confusing statements like "My hair!" and "Let go of my shirt!" had me completely befuddled, when Max came on the line.

 

"Alec." Hot. Aroused. Urgent.

 

Max named me. She's the only one who could use my name like that.

 

I tried to choke out something resembling control. "Max, you shouldn't."

 

She smiled into the receiver. I didn't have to see her to know that. I couldn't smell her, but I could remember smelling her, and it was almost as good. "Come over here." It was a command.

 

Wait… was I objecting? Surely not. I nodded faintly, even though she couldn't see me. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

 

Faintly, in the background, I heard Original Cindy saying, "Don't you dare!" But it was way, way too late for that. I dropped the phone on the floor and walked out the door.

 

* * *

 

_everybody knows i'm her friend_ _/ everybody knows i'm her man  
Tori Amos, "Raspberry Swirl"_

_  
_

* * *

 

It's probably a miracle that I didn't kill anyone on the way over to Max's apartment. Or myself, for that matter. I barely noticed the traffic, and would have forgotten the close call with the delivery truck entirely if I hadn't had to duck the shotgun blasts out the driver's side window. As it was, I made two wrong turns, and for fifteen minutes got lost three blocks from my own apartment.

 

Admittedly, I was distracted. Alcohol and extreme hormonal urges will do that. And it wasn't just directions I was forgetting. Sure, I remembered basic necessities – my keys, for instance, and my motorcycle helmet – but I forgot some other things. Like underwear. And my shoes.

 

None of that mattered, though. Max was waiting. She was in heat, and she was waiting for me. So to hell with my shoes.

 

Somehow, I made it in one piece to Max's building. Abandoning my motorcycle out front, I ran my transgenic ass inside – and staggered against the hormonal rush through my body, head to toe.

 

Oh, yes, Max was here, and the animal in me knew it.

 

No time to waste. I took the stairs three at a time, up to the second floor – only to find a giant, hulking dog in a bicycle helmet waiting for me at the top of the steps. Blocking my way. "Hi, Alec," he said, totally unsurprised to see me shoeless and panting in Max's stairway.

 

I blinked, totally confused. "Joshua?" Had he sensed her, too? What on earth did a part-canine want with a part-feline in heat?

 

More importantly, who cared? He was between me and Max. "Back off, dog boy, she's mine." He was two steps above me, easily had the advantage of height by three feet, and was, well, gigantic. But if I had to go through him, then so be it.

 

"Max not Joshua's," he said slowly, reasonably, if muffled. It was probably hard to talk around his 'public-safe' helmet. "Cindy calls, says Joshua need to protect little fella. Lots of cats." Okay, maybe he wasn't affected by her heat. OC must have called him right after I left. Next time, the hell with navigating downtown Seattle, I'm just going to run across rooftops. "Max not Alec's. Max Logan's."

 

Not what I wanted to hear right now. "We'll see about that." If he wanted to do this the hard way, fine, I was game. I swept out a kick to knock him off his feet – he jumped and sidestepped, then shoved me, hard. I went down two steps. Down was not the direction I wanted to go.

 

"Logan isn't here, is he? And I am." How to get around him? For all his lumbering bulk, Joshua was fast – but I could still take him. Why did he have to stand in the way? Dammit, I was still coherent enough to not want to break his neck, but I would if I had to.

 

"Max and Alec not get busy," Joshua rumbled. "Not the plan."

 

"Plans change." I moved fast, tried to blur past him to the right –

 

…and Joshua swiped me up over his shoulder like a naughty toddler. In the blink of an eye I was hanging upside down, kicking futilely and beating Joshua's lower back as hard as I could, from that position. Transgenic or no transgenic, if you can't get leverage, you can't do much damage. If I hadn't been so incredibly horny, it would have been humiliating. "Put me down! Put me down, dog boy, or I swear I'll kill you." I wasn't sure how I would follow through on that threat, but I could be creative.

 

Joshua was unmoved. He must have had experience with things like this, among the basement anomalies. "Alec not want Max." He carried me down the stairs, unperturbed, a very Zen puppy.

 

"The hell I don't!"

 

Joshua paused, considering. "Maybe Alec want Max." Yes. Most definitely. No question there. "Cindy say little fella not want Alec."

 

He made a mistake, and walked too close to the railing – with a desperate lunge, I managed to get a decent handhold on the bar railing. A temporary reprieve, certainly, but I wasn't letting go and any pause in the decent was a welcome one. Joshua would either have to break my hands or wait for the metal to give.

 

"Why don't you ask her what she wants," I muttered. Joshua glanced over his shoulder at the bar railing, then gave my body a sharp tug. The railing came loose from the concrete and escaped my grasp, and Joshua continued inexorably downward. Fucking contractors – didn't anyone build anything right anymore?

 

"Little fella say yes, not yes. Yes now, no later."

 

For a moment, the fog around my head was penetrated by a vision of the loathing in Max's face when she traded her happiness with Logan for my life. The image – which bothered me more often than I cared to admit – was one of the few things that filled me with shame. And shame was sobering, even in the face of pheromones.

 

Joshua was right. She would say yes tonight, but tomorrow, or the next day, when she was herself again, she would hate me.

 

I didn't want her to hate me.

 

Joshua set me down at the bottom of the stairs, and there was no judgment in his face. "Go home, medium fella. All okay in the morning. That's the plan."

 

I nodded. I was foggy, but mostly okay. "Thanks, Josh," I mumbled, clapping him on the shoulder, and turned to leave. Almost made it, too.

 

"Alec!"

 

I stopped dead in my tracks. "Max."

 

Was I leaving? Why would I leave?

 

She was leaning over the railing, three stories up, holding off Original Cindy (who was fighting admirably to drag her back inside, considering what she was up against). Leaning over the railing, hair spilling over her darkened face, calling for me. Desperate. Wanting.

 

Wanting me. I smiled humorlessly, baring my teeth. "Mine."

 

Joshua moved quickly to get into my way, but not quick enough this time. I blurred past him, up the stairs, fast and hard enough to crack the linoleum under my bare feet, to the third floor landing. Fast enough to tear Max away from OC before she had a chance to register what was happening. OC fell to the floor, hard but not too hard – again, in direct contrast to me.

 

I stepped between OC and my mate, facing this potential threat, and Max pressed herself against my back. Her hands dove under my t-shirt and she got straight to work nibbling at my barcode. Max always was task oriented. Valuable trait.

 

Joshua was hard on my heels, and assisted OC to her feet. OC reached for her frying pan, lost in the fall, but Joshua pulled her back. "No, Cindy. Fubar. Too late."

 

He was right. These were my friends – I still knew that – but if they tried to take Max from me I would kill them both without a second thought.

 

OC looked at me, unconvinced, then at Max. "Max, you said—" But I moved to block Max from her view.

 

"Leave." I barely recognized the voice as my own.

 

She froze. Humans are animals, too, after all – animals that are particularly good at recognizing threats. Joshua, attuned to the precariousness of the situation, gently steered OC backwards. I didn't move until I heard the door slam downstairs.

 

Finally, I turned to face Max, who wasted no time in grabbing me by the shirt collar and dragging me back to her apartment. Frankly, I was fine with fucking her right here in the hall, but if she wanted to be modest, I could live with that.

 

To the business at hand.

* * *

 

_give me hop_ _e / that emptiness brings fullness / and loss of love brings wholeness  
Indigo Girls, "Hand Me Downs"_

_  
_

* * *

 

What followed was easily the most satisfying two days of my life.

 

And when it was over, when Max finally fell into a nearly comatose sleep around two a.m. on the third day, I got a chance to nap myself. I woke when the sun rose and dragged myself into the shower to take stock of the situation.

 

Black eye, teeth marks, hickeys, scratches, bruises, strained muscles, and chafing aside, I felt phenomenal. But vast amounts of great sex would do that. I'd lost count at round fifteen, about twelve hours ago. On the kitchen counter. Original Cindy wasn't going to be happy when she saw how many dishes we'd broken.

 

The shower water was cold, but cleansing. And head clearing. When the last of Max's scent washed off of my body (with the help of some kind of girly floral soap), the first thing I realized was that I hadn't eaten in a very long time. Hey, I had had better things to do. Max, mostly.

 

She hadn't moved by the time I got out of the shower – under the quilt, still curled in a fetal position on what was left of her bed. After the fourth time around, three of the slats holding the frame together had snapped, dropping the mattress and us onto the floor. It was so startling that we had almost paused what we were doing.

 

I grinned and brushed a few tangled strands of dark hair off of her face, glorying in purely male pride. A beautiful woman was satiated, sleeping in spite of her shark DNA, and I'd broken her bed. Not bad for forty-eight hours of work.

 

I allowed a finger to trace the curve of Max's cheek down to her jaw line, where the flesh was bruised and swollen from nips. Mine.

 

It did look a little sore, though, revved up healing or otherwise. I'd get her some antiseptic later today. Might need to lift it from one of the downtown emergency rooms, but hospital security certainly wasn't a problem. And hell, I'd buy her a new bed, too. Something sturdier for next time.

 

My hands stilled at that thought. There was no guarantee that Max wouldn't grab me by the throat and throw me through the window when she woke up. Or maybe she'd smile, thank me, and give me a blowjob. No idea, really – we'd spent the entirety of the last two days in the same room, but the only words we'd exchanged weren't fit for repeating. If I had to guess, though, I'd place my bet on the ass-kicking outcome.

 

But I wasn't going to dwell on that right now. She was still sleeping, I'd participated in what had to be the best sex in history, things were mostly right with the world, and I was hungry. Food first, huge friendship-ending issues later.

 

Naked and wincing a bit (if there was a next time, Max was going to have to clip her nails in advance), I went in search of the pizza I'd ordered in a moment of rationality yesterday. Somewhere in the haze of lust, the old soldier auto drive had kicked in – we needed supplies. So I called Pizza Express and stammered out an order for a large anchovy while Max's tongue went exploring.

 

When the delivery guy had shown up, and made the mistake of gawking at the gloriously and unabashedly nude Max when she opened the door, I'd been left with little choice but to grab him by the throat and hurl him out into the hallway. And when she made it clear just how acceptable she found that bit of macho behavior, the pizza had been forgotten. Luckily, it was still good after its night and day on the floor. Cold, but good.

 

I dropped the box onto the coffee table and sank into the sofa, munching, glancing around the apartment. Damn, the place looked like a tornado had hit. Appropriate.

 

A rustle in the doorway, and there was Max, wrapped in a ratty bathrobe and looking like a bit of a train wreck herself. A very attractive train wreck, matted bed head aside.

 

Her eyes met mine, very briefly, and then she looked down, face crimson. There was a long pause as I tried not to fidget. Should I run for it now, or later? Was she going to say something, or just go ahead and start slapping me around like a red-headed stepchild?

 

I cleared my throat. No response from the lady of the hour. Not even a twitch.

 

Okay. I tried again. "Mornin'." Nothing. Just the determined study of her own feet. Was this the silent treatment? If so, it was damn creepy. More for lack of anything else to do, I offered her my half eaten slice of pizza. "Want some anchovies?"

 

I thought I was being very nice, gallant even, sharing my breakfast – which is why I was unprepared for the nearly silent, wrenching sob that came from her small frame.

 

"No pizza?" I said uncertainly as Max sank to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. "I mean, if anchovies aren't your thing, that's fine. We can order something else, pepperoni, or maybe buffalo wings. Would you like some buffalo wings?" Yes, I was babbling. There wasn't a Comforting Crying Women 101 class at Manticore. Besides, this was totally unexpected – shouldn't she be trying to kill me? Isn't that basically how our relationship worked?

 

"All right," I ventured finally, setting down my pizza and sliding off the couch next to her on the floor. She turned her face away, body shaking. "Not buffalo wings. How about Chinese instead? I promise, I won't attack the delivery boy this time." C'mon, Maxie, smile for me. "You like kung pao, right?"

 

"I'm not hungry." Well, at least it was a response, choked though it was. I bit back the urge to say something clever about her appetite – even _I_ knew this wasn't the time.

 

"Okay. No food then. What do you want?" I tried to brush the hair out of her face, but she flinched away as though I had slapped her.

 

Horror dawned on me. Of course.

 

I had scared her. She had never been with one of her own before, and I hadn't had the sense to hold myself back, had in fact delighted in leaving my mark. And now Max was afraid. Brilliant. Just… brilliant, Alec.

 

And I had clearly overstayed my welcome. "Right. I should go." I got to my feet, careful not to touch her, and started searching the wrecked apartment for my clothes. I hadn't come in with shoes, but my t-shirt I found behind the overturned sofa, and my pants –

 

I sighed. My cargo pants had come off in pieces when Max had been too impatient to bother with the buttons. It hadn't bothered me at the time (I'd been more bothered by other things), but now, this was going to prove inconvenient. "Max, I have no pants." Damn, they'd been expensive, too.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

Shaking my head, I checked under some overturned pots in the kitchen and found her cell phone. "It's all right. I'll give Original Cindy a call, see if she can stop…" I trailed off as I caught Max's face. She was finally looking at me, up from the floor, eyes full of guilt and self-loathing and unhappiness. All the things Max really loved to wallow in.

 

Well, she might get that look over Logan, but it was just stupid be that miserable on my account. Granted, it was stupid to be that miserable on Logan's account, too, but one issue at a time.

 

Setting the cellphone back down, I approached carefully, kneeling next to her. Trying not to freak her out. "Hey. It's okay. Really."

 

"You must hate me," she said, dejected, taking in the scratches on my chest.

 

What?

 

Max reached out, tentatively, and touched the bruise around my left eye. I tried not to wince, but she caught it anyway and dropped her hand instantly. "I didn't mean to… Alec…" Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm sorry…"

 

Okay, now I was lost. "Sorry about what?" I glanced down at myself, at the battle scars of the last two days. "Sorry about all this? Max, I'll heal. Stems cells are a beautiful thing, remember?"

 

Well, that wasn't the right thing to say. She groaned hid her face back in her knees. "God, I'm such a freak."

 

"No, you're not." Stick with safe responses from now on.

 

"Right. Because normal girls always rip their lovers to shreds when banging the gong for two days straight." Lovers? "Even Kendra can't beat that one."

 

I shook my head. For such a smart kid, she had some real self-awareness problems. "Max, I hate to tell you this, but you're not a normal girl."

 

She snorted behind a curtain of hair. Did she have to be so stubborn?

 

Forgetting for a second that I was trying not to freak her out, I grabbed her chin – gently – and tilted her face towards me. "Now listen, 'cause I'm only going to say this once, and then I'm going to start charging you by the hour. _You're not human._ You're a genetic cocktail from a Petri dish, Max. Going into heat isn't natural for humans, but it _is_ perfectly natural for genetic cocktails from Petri dishes." I let go of her chin. "If you don't quit trying so hard to be a normal girl, you'll crack."

 

Wow. Where did all that come from? One of these days, I really was going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut. Maybe.

 

Max just stared, eyes wide. Okay, _now_ I was going to get smacked. I braced myself for impact, but to my complete surprise, she laughed. Not in a very happy way, sure, but forced laughter was still an improvement over tears. "Smart Alec, transgenic therapist."

 

I smirked. "Hey, spend enough time in Psy-Ops, you figure out all kinds of things." Standing, I offered her my hand to help her up – and when she turned beet red, I remembered that I was naked. Naked was no longer socially acceptable. "Er… got any clothes I can borrow, Maxie?"

 

A strange look passed over her face, and the warmth that had been there before shuttered. "Don't call me that." She didn't take my hand, wiping her eyes as she got to her feet. "I've got some pajama pants that might work." As she went back into her bedroom, I noticed that she walking very gingerly.

 

I couldn't help it – I grinned. Broke her bed _and_ she couldn't walk. I rule.

 

"Here, they'll be short, but—" Max caught my grin before I could wipe it away, and rolled her eyes in disgust. "Great. Now I'm another notch in Alec's belt." She threw the pants at me.

 

Low blow. "Hey, you're the one that asked me to come over, remember?" I snapped, getting dressed.

 

"What, and you couldn't say no?" What the hell had her on edge all of the sudden? If two dozen orgasms couldn't loosen her up…

 

Well, I wasn't having it. "Oh, no. Don't make this out to be my fault just because you're having day-after repentance."

 

"Oh, I know. It's my fault." Acid dripped from her voice. "'Cause I woke up the other morning and decided hey, my life isn't complicated enough – think I'll go into heat and fuck a transgenic manwhore. Just to shake things up, you know?"

 

Amazing, that I'd been feeling bad for her just a few minutes earlier. Bitch. "You want to fight? Pretend that you didn't love it? Fine." I glared at her. "But you're a _liar_ , Maxie, and we both know it."

 

Her face was cold, but those dark eyes were blazing. "I told you not to call me that." And she took an open-handed swing at me. I caught her wrist easily. I knew she'd try to hit me sooner or later.

 

" _Let me go."_ She wasn't steely anymore. Something else was rolling off of her, a deep desperation. Her voice shook with it. My anger left me – mostly.

 

"Max." She flinched when I said her name. "Max, tell me what's wrong." This was about something else, something in addition to her heat and being pissed at me for existing, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

 

"I…" She paused. Then she ripped her wrist out of my hand. "Nothing. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

 

What the hell? "Fine!" I shouted at the bathroom, a bit childishly. "But you owe me new pants!" I pulled on my t-shirt and stormed out of the apartment.

 

Women. Go figure.


	2. Strange Little Girl

_if the divine master plan is perfection / maybe next i'll give Judas a try  
Tori Amos, "Spark"_

* * *

"Er… got any clothes I can borrow, Maxie?"

 

I was okay until he called me that.

 

_"This is for you, Maxie. So you can finally understand what it is I'm doing."_

 

I tried to shake it. Tried to fight him, needle him, tried to remember that this was just smartass Alec, not a specter come back to haunt me.

 

But I couldn't. Alec glared at me and suddenly, I was standing in a church, pleading with my ruined brother who had the same intense gaze, who had looked at me with the same hunger, who had elicited the same shameful desire deep in my stomach.

 

_"Ben, why are you doing this?" "You know why."_

 

_\- the wet snap of Ben's neck in my hand –_

 

And another brother, with cooler eyes untainted by madness…

 

_"Fight them, Maxie."_

 

"Max."

 

…my poor sisters…

 

_\- a lifeless blue body falling out of a tank -_

 

_"Next time I see you, baby sister, I'm bringing you home."_

 

Too many ghosts in my life. I wanted to be normal. Normal girls didn't go into heat, and normal girls didn't see visions of their dead and gone families.

 

"Max, tell me what's wrong." Alec's voice was firm but gentle, like his grip on my wrist. It would be easy to fall into his arms. To fall apart and hope that he could put me back together, like the broken toy he thought I was.

 

And one day, when he died too, this moment would be one more demon to follow me.

 

I wanted to be normal.

 

I wanted this living reminder of my failures to go away.

 

So I ripped away from his damnable firm but gentle touch. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." I stalked into the bathroom and shut him out.

 

And I waited until I heard the door slam before I burst into tears.

 

* * *

 

_i've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets / looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets  
Tori Amos, "Crucify"_

_  
_

* * *

 

**One week later**

 

"Aiight, Boo. That's it." Original Cindy sat down next to me on my bed (well, my mattress and splintered wood) and pulled the quilt off of my face. "You are gettin' out of this apartment. You are gonna take a shower, you are gonna get dressed, you and I are gonna go to Crash and play foosball and drink beer, and you are _gonna enjoy it._ "

 

Mumbling, I curled tighter into a ball. I hadn't left home in a week, leaving it to OC and Sketchy to make excuses for me (when I returned to Jam Pony, I was going to have to bring a note from my doctor regarding my bout of ebola). My cell phone rang almost constantly, but I didn't answer. And once I had washed my sheets clean of any sign of Alec, I just stopped getting out bed.

 

And I really, really didn't want to go out to Crash. "Maybe tommorow, OC."

 

Rather than leave me alone, as she had for the last few days, OC yanked the covers off of my body so hard that I tumbled out of bed and landed on my ass. "No, Boo. _Tonight_." She crossed her arms, and I wondered, not for the first time, what Lydecker would have thought of her. She had an iron will that put Manticore creations to shame. "You have been mopin' for way too long. Time to face your fears."

 

"Easy for you to say," I grumbled. The thought of facing Alec, with his knowing smirk, was too much to bear. "I'm not ready." God, I hated that shake in my voice.

 

"He's been askin' for you at Crash every night. Sooner or later, you're gonna have to talk to him."

 

I closed my eyes. "Yeah, well, Alec's going to have to suffer disappointment, same as the rest of us," I said darkly. It wasn't as though he hadn't gotten plenty of satisfaction to make up for it. Something deep inside alternately burned and cringed at the thought as I picked myself up off the floor.

 

OC gave me a funny look. "No, not Alec. Logan."

 

"Oh. Right." I didn't want to talk to Logan, either. Just the thought of the softly disappointed expression on his face was enough to fill me with shame.

 

But Logan-related shame wasn't enough to crowd out my unbidden thought – why hadn't Alec asked about me?

 

"'Cause he ain't been at Crash for the last week, neither."

 

Shit, did I say that out loud? "Oh," I said casually. Too late. I could almost see OC's antenna perking up. "What?"

 

"Nothin', Boo." She pretended to be interested in her fingernails. "Ya know, the bed-buster may not be askin' about you, but trust me, he wants to know how you are."

 

I doubted that. "I'm sure," I said, shrugging my bathrobe on over my tshirt and pajama pants. Alec had my other pants. Asking for them back was too humiliating a prospect to consider.

 

"Every time someone walks into Jam Pony, he looks up to see if it's you." OC grinned. "Musta been some damn fine boot-knockin', girl, to turn a male-slut's head like that."

 

"He's probably looking up to see if I'm coming in to kick his ass." I tried not to dwell on the boot-knocking, because it had, in fact, been damn fine.

 

OC's face turned serious. "And would you?"

 

"Would I what?"

 

"Kick his ass. You had an itch to scratch, and he sure as hell scratched it." She gestured to the remnants of my bed. "I mean, as long as he pays for new furniture, it don't seem like an ass-kicking kind of situation, know what I'm sayin'?"

 

I glanced at the bed. Yeah, he had scratched my itch, better than anyone ever had. And had still been there when I woke up.

 

And I'd taken a swing at him for it.

 

" _You want to fight? Pretend that you didn't love every second of it? Fine."_

 

Guilt flooded me. Would there ever be a time in my life when I didn't feel guilty about something? "It's not an ass-kicking situation. But he might think it is." I couldn't meet her eyes, and sank back down onto the mattress. "I wasn't very nice to him. Afterwards, I mean."

 

A sigh. "Oh, Boo." She sat down next to me and put an arm around my shoulder. "Original Cindy understands the human heart, but the transgenic heart is still a mystery."

 

"Not just to you." The room turned blurry as my eyes filled with tears. Damn it, I was sick of crying. I'd done nothing but cry for days. "I'm so messed up, OC."

 

She just rubbed my back.

 

"It's easier with Logan," I blurted out. "In spite of everything, the chair and the virus and stuff. He makes me pasta, and we go for walks, and we talk about things – or we used to – and I could pretend that I was an ordinary girl. Just for a little while." I choked back a sob. OC kept rubbing soothing circles into my shoulder blades. "What's so wrong with that? Why can't I just have a normal life, with friends, and a boring job, and a normal underground cyber-journalist boyfriend?"

 

"I don't know." OC nudged me gently. "But ya got two out of three." I smiled in spite of myself. We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.

 

Then – "So where's the bed-buster fittin' into this jigsaw?"

 

OC was clearly on a mission tonight. I sighed. "I don't know. I mean, good sex doesn't make a relationship." Going on a date with Alec? Right. When pigs flew in a frozen hell. "Especially when half the time I want to smack him."

 

"Now that I don't buy, Boo." She nudged me again. "Why does he bug you? Really?"

 

"It's…" I twisted my hair in my fist. It was hard, trying to put to words emotions that I couldn't even define, let alone articulate. "He's Manticore. Being around him makes me think about things I want to forget."

 

Her brow furrowed. "Like what? Bein' a science project?"

 

"Yeah. That…" _\- the wet snap of Ben's neck in my hand –_ "…and other things." I swallowed and shook my head. This wasn't the time. "And he's a big pain in the ass."

 

"Well, he is a male," she chuckled. "If you're not gonna switch teams, ya gotta accept that you'll be forever dealin' with big pains in the ass." We both digested the wisdom of that statement. "Max, do you really want Original Cindy's opinion, no foolin'?"

 

"Yes." Desperately.

 

"You don't laugh anymore, Boo." She waved off my protest. "I liked roller-boy in the beginnin', because you were always laughin'. Now you don't. In the end, it don't matter what happened, or if it's your fault or his fault or the Men-in-Black's fault. You don't laugh, and that's not somethin' you can do without.

 

"Now, I don't know if the bed-buster would just make things worse, but I gotta figure you'd be better off with a male that don't have you pretendin' to be somethin' you're not. And that's the straight up truth, Max."

 

" _If you don't quit trying so hard to be a normal girl, you'll crack."_

 

I closed my eyes.

 

Damn.

 

"But anyway," OC said brightly, hopping up off the bed, "you and I got a date with a pitcher of beer and twenty-two little plastic soccer dudes."

 

"No," I said, lost in thought. "No, I'm not going to Crash."

 

"You are _not_ gonna go back to bed, Boo."

 

"Wasn't planning on it." I was already putting on a sweater. "I've just… got to fix something."

 

"Hey." I paused, and OC touched my hand. "You know I got your back, no matter what."

 

I hugged her, hard. "And I've got yours."

 

She grinned. My sister. "Akay then. But you owe me a beer. Tomorrow night?"

 

"Yeah. Tomorrow night."

 

But for tonight… I had things to do.


	3. A Few Small Repairs

_it's time for a few small repairs, she said  
Shawn Colvin, "Sunny Came Home"_

_  
_

* * *

 

I don't know what I was expecting when I heard the knock on the door, but Max soaked to the bone wasn't it.

 

Granted, it was raining in sheets outside (raining? In Seattle? No…), and storming hard enough to have knocked the power out for the last hour. So if Max _were_ to show up at my door, it would be natural for her to be soaked to the bone. Thus it was more her presence that surprised me than her state.

 

And I'd just stood in the doorway for about ninety seconds contemplating this. Moron.

 

"Um… hi," Max said quietly. She was starting to drip on the mat.

 

I shook myself mentally. "Hi, Max, what's up?" Very casual. I wasn't the least bit unsettled to see her here. Sure, I hadn't seen her since she threw me out of her apartment following two days of incredible heat-induced sex. But it didn't bother me that she'd been avoiding me. Nothing's wrong at all. Right.

 

A flash of light outside my apartment window, then a crack of thunder that shook the walls. I didn't flinch.

 

"I… um…" She was looking at the floor, the walls, her hands, anywhere but me. Since when did Max trip over her own words? I'd seen her in a lot of different states (angry, pissed, furious, and now horny), but awkward was a first.

 

I waited for a few beats, but she didn't finish the sentence. "Yes?" I prompted. Maybe she'd slid off her bike in the storm and hit her head, and was suffering from a concussion. Unlikely, but possible. Or maybe she'd come here for a change of clothes, but being wet wasn't likely to bother her enough to want to wear my underwear.

 

Or maybe she was here to… tell me she had missed me?

 

I tried to squelch that bit of hope before it ran away with me, but no luck.

 

"I…" Another pause. C'mon, Max, spit it out. "I was wondering if I could get my pajama pants back," she finished lamely.

 

"Right," I said, turning away. Right. Pajama pants. My transgenic mind (not as good as Brain at probabilities, but still decent at scenarios) had already cooked up two or three different endings to that sentence that had Max warm and soft against my body, but she just wanted her pajama pants back. "I'll get them."

 

"No, wait," she called out. I was already halfway to my bedroom. "Alec, that isn't what I wanted." Huh? "I mean, I do. Want them back. But that's not why… I didn't come over for pants."

 

I turned back to face her incredulously. Definitely a concussion. "Max… what the hell are you talking about?"

 

"I… just…" she trailed off again. Well, at least she was looking at me now – that much was obvious to my night-vision. It was taking a disturbing amount of effort to ignore how miserable those eyes were. I didn't care that she'd been miserable. Right. "I'm sorry about the way I acted, okay? I'm sorry."

 

Wait. I blinked. "Was that an… apology?" I grinned, even though I didn't really find it all that funny. "The All-Knowing Max was wrong? Amazing!"

 

She looked stricken, just for a second, before her face closed. "Forget it," she snapped. "Drop the pants off with OC at Jam Pony." And she turned to leave.

 

No. She didn't get to come in to my apartment, didn't get to come into my _life_ and do that. And I couldn't think of anything I hated more than that closed face of hers. "Do you think sorry is enough?" I said evenly.

 

Max paused, halfway out the front door. "What else do you want?" She still didn't get it. After all of this, she _still_ didn't get it.

 

"So we're in your apartment, and we've both been stupid, but I think we're basically going to be okay," I ground out. I hated her, that she could make me this angry. I hated her. "Then you throw me out, don't tell me why, skip out of work for a week, don't come to Crash, and don't answer your cell. I've been wracking my brain for the last week, trying to figure out what the hell I did that was so bad. So terrible that _you couldn't even bother to tell me._ " I was shouting now, and I didn't care. Max was shrinking away from me, and I didn't care about that either. "So you know what, Max? _Fuck_ your apology. I don't care if you're sorry or not. I want an explanation."

 

She looked up at me for a moment, then back down at the floor, eyes filling with tears. I made a disgusted noise in the back of my throat. Why did she have to start crying now, when all I wanted was to be mad at her? I didn't want to see her cry. I didn't want to stop being angry.

 

Another crack of thunder in the dark.

 

I closed my eyes. I hadn't meant to make her cry. "Look, Max—"

 

"My brothers and sisters called me Maxie."

 

I paused. "What?" How did they come into this?

 

"They always called me Maxie." The words were falling from her lips in a rush. "Tinga did. Zack did." She choked. "Ben did."

 

What? I hadn't…

 

" _Er… got any clothes I can borrow, Maxie?"_

 

I had.

 

Oh, shit.

 

The pieces fell into place. This wasn't about me. This was about Max and her "siblings" and the striking resemblance I bore to one of them. It made sense.

 

And I had made her cry. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

I fought back the urge to pull her to me – somehow, I didn't think she'd appreciate that. So instead, I moved back from the door. "Why don't you come in?" If we kept this up halfway in the hall, we'd get an audience.

 

She nodded and stepped inside. As she did, I could see her take a deep breath, then straighten her back. Steeling herself up.

 

"Do you want a drink?" I asked as I closed the door.

 

"God, yes."

 

I laughed at that, and reached into the cabinet for a bottle of scotch as Max leaned on the bar counter. I pretended not to notice her wiping her eyes. "Here." I set the bottle down. "It's not pre-Pulse or anything, but…"

 

My words died in my throat as Max opened the bottle, threw her head back, and started chugging. Wow.

 

"Max… I do have glasses. They're even clean." She waived me off, not pausing. "Okay, then."

 

A long few moments later, she slammed the now-half empty bottle back down on the counter, looking glazed. "Are you going to ralph?" I asked, more curious than anything else.

 

She shook her head, then burped. "Nope." She smiled.

 

Wow.

* * *

 

 _maybe there's a god above / and all i ever learned from love / was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you  
_ _Rufus Wainwright, "Hallelujah"_

_  
_

* * *

 

The rain was loud on the roof.

 

We sat on the couch in companionable silence for a half hour, passing the bottle back and forth. Max's clothes were soaking a large wet spot into my couch, but she didn't complain and I didn't mind.

 

The warm glow in my stomach felt like liquid courage. So I asked what I'd been wondering for a long time. "Was he like me? Ben, I mean?"

 

Max made a small noise, and I mentally smacked myself in the head. Shit, what was I thinking, when she'd stopped crying… then I realized it was a snort, not a sob. "No, he was nothing like you." She reached for the bottle, which I obligingly passed to her. "I think you effectively end the 'nature versus nurture' question, Alec." I closed my eyes in relief – although whether it was relief at not being like my insane twin, or relief that she didn't seem to be upset, I didn't know.

 

She took another swallow of scotch. "I don't think… I don't think he was ever really together, you know?"

 

"Not really." Manticore hadn't really filled me in on 493, being as my potential genetic tendencies for insanity weren't considered my business. He had lost it on the outside, and I'd spent a very long time in Psy-Ops for his mistakes. That was the extent of my information.

 

"Well, whether he was or not, I didn't know it at the time. He was just my big brother who had all the answers." The warmth in her voice was obvious, warmth that had never been directed towards me. But it was almost good enough just to hear it. I had to get her drunk more often. "Zack was our leader, but Ben knew everything. Ben could do no wrong," she said wistfully, passing me back the bottle. "But I guess something didn't tick right for him."

 

"They told me," I ventured, not needing to clarify who 'they' were. "They said he cracked."

 

Max smiled in the dark, but there wasn't a shred of humor behind it. "Yeah, I should say. He killed eleven people." She paused. "That I know about."

 

Reeling from shock, I took another swallow from the bottle. The scotch blazed down my throat. Serial killer. God.

 

"Manticore ruined something in him," she continued. A deep bitterness colored her voice. "They gave him too many things he couldn't answer. He came up with this bizarre combination of religion and… animal nature." She smiled her humorless smile again. "He liked to hunt." She took the bottle back from me and finished it off.

 

Okay. Neither of us were drunk enough yet to handle this. Time for more liquor.

 

She kept talking while I went into the kitchen, although I was pretty sure she wasn't talking to me anymore. "He came to Seattle, oh, about a year ago. Killing people, leaving his barcode on them." I found another bottle – vodka, this time. The deliberately unconcerned tone of Max's voice was starting to freak me out. "Logan found out. Wanted me to stop him."

 

I fought off a flare of white-hot fury at Logan, who, in all fairness, had probably not understood what he'd been asking.

 

"So I did. I fought him and I broke his leg." She leaned her head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. She wasn't crying, and somehow, that was more disturbing. "Lydecker was coming. Ben didn't want to go back. He asked me to kill him."

 

Shit.

 

"And I did. I broke his neck in my hand." No emotion.

 

I sat down and passed her the bottle wordlessly. She took a sip, then looked down in surprise. "This isn't scotch."

 

"Can't get anything by you, can I, Max?" My arm snaked its way around her shoulder of its own volition.

 

She shrugged and drank deeply. "I couldn't even talk about it," she remarked, her voice soft. "I didn't have anyone to talk about it."

 

"Not even Logan?" I asked, before I could stop myself. Idiot. Why was I bringing _him_ up?

 

Max snorted. "Especially not Logan." I chose not to look too deeply into that statement, or wonder for too long why she didn't mind talking to _me_. Alcohol probably had something to do with it.

 

Time passed in the darkness. I tried to come up with something deeply insightful to say, something that would lighten the mood, lift the weight of guilt off of Max's shoulders, and make her want me, all at the same time. But nothing was coming.

 

So she came up with something to say first. "Tell me about Rachel."

 

I stiffened. "No." Fuck, hadn't we dealt with enough shit for the night?

 

She pretended like I hadn't said anything, and leaned her head against my shoulder. Her hair was curling as it dried. "Was she pretty?"

 

_-Rachel smiling at me from the piano—_

 

"Yeah," I answered without thinking. My mouth had gone dry. "Yeah, she was."

 

Max didn't say anything. In a very questioning way.

 

Okay. She wanted to drag all our demons to light? Fine. If she couldn't leave well enough alone… but somehow, I was having trouble summoning up any real indignation. Maybe because her hair smelled so good. Hard to say.

 

"She wasn't Manticore." Fuck. I took the vodka from her and drank deeply. If we were going to do this, I didn't want to feel anything – or failing that, not remember it in the morning. "When I was around her, I could pretend, you know? Pretend I wasn't what I was."

 

She started at that, but didn't say anything.

 

"Ra… she never hid anything." I couldn't say her name. "She didn't even pretend not to like me. She smiled all the time."

 

_"In case you haven't noticed, I've been kind of throwing myself at you."_

 

"I didn't think to hide her interest from Manticore. I was stupid." I was rushing through it now. "They wanted me to kill her and her father. I planted the bomb. I tried to warn her—" – _her warm hand slapping my face—_ "—but the bomb went off. They dragged me back to Manticore. I spent three months in Psy-Ops."

 

Why did we have to talk about this? Didn't she understand how much it hurt?

 

"Did you love her?" Max's voice was soft, nothing searching or judging.

 

Something painful was lodged in my chest. "Yes."

 

Her fingers found my hand. "I'm glad."

 

I'm not going to cry I'm not going to cry I'm not going to cry. I repeated the mantra to myself even as the tears started to fall.

 

Max had to know, since I was sobbing directly into her hair, but she didn't say a word. I don't think I'd ever been as grateful to anyone as I was to her for her silence at that moment.

 

The tears passed, and amazingly, I felt better. Still a little drunk, yes, but better. It was the first time I'd ever thought about Rachel and didn't feel worse afterwards.

 

Maybe this 'sharing' thing wasn't too bad.

* * *

 

_a newborn hope / unjaded by their years  
Sarah McLachlan, "Wait"_

_  
_

* * *

 

"Do you think it ever gets easier?" she asked awhile later. Max's fingers were intertwined with mine – when did that happen?

 

I smiled. "Well, it can't get much harder, right?"

 

She laughed – a pleased, amused laugh I couldn't recall ever hearing before. I definitely needed to hear it more often. If a Drunk Max was a Happy Max, then we were going to go drinking at Crash every night from now on.

 

Still smiling, she said, "You know… Original Cindy said something to me about laughing…" She trailed off, looking thoughtful.

 

Not again. "Yes?" I prompted. Trying to guess the end of her sentences was frustrating.

 

She just shook her head. "Nothing." And, to my complete and total surprise, her body twisted and her lips caught mine – soft, totally different than the fevered meshings of heat and infinitely more arousing.

 

It only lasted a few seconds, but that was long enough for my entire world to realign.

 

Max pulled away, and smiled at me as I tried to figure out what to say next. "Hmm…" she murmured. "I finally found something that can shut you up." She laughed again, and my moronic can't-recognize-trouble-if-I-tripped-over-it heart skipped a beat. She leaned in to kiss me again, and my hands (much more sensible than my heart) came up to her shoulders and held her away. "What?"

 

"Max, you're drunk." And she was – I could smell the vodka and scotch on her breath.

 

"No more than you." Well… that may have been true too. But that didn't make her position any less… difficult.

 

I grimaced as I said, "You should go home, Max." Why was I always put in the position to say that? Why could it never be 'Hey, stay here tonight, Max?'

 

She looked at me from under lidded lashes. "I don't want to go home." Dammit, my heart skipped again. It really had to stop doing that. But before I could argue the point properly, my hands (now turned traitor) pulled her closer and our lips met again.

 

Her fingers wove through my hair. Damn, she could get addictive. And distracting. Terribly distracting.

 

"You're going to be sorry about that in the morning," I said seriously when we came up for air.

 

"Will not," she said, just as seriously, her hand still in my hair.

 

"Will so."

 

"Will not."

 

"Will s-" Max shut me up with another kiss.

 

"Okay, fine, you win." I stood up quickly and put the sofa between me and her very warm, tempting, strangely compliant body. This had to be a weird dream, or maybe the scotch was drugged, or maybe Max was having some kind of very bizarre two-week-long heat. Who knew. "You can stay. But you're sleeping on the couch."

 

"Oh, and you get the bed?" She raised an eyebrow at me. And she thought I was the smart-aleck.

 

"You're not getting my bed." How would I ever be able to sleep there again if she had been in it? I'd be kept awake by perpetual hard-ons for the rest of my life – or at least until I got a new bed. And I already owed her a bed. That would make two beds I would have to buy. Beds get expensive.

 

Apparently, I wasn't the only one thinking about that. "After what you did to my bed and everything. Way to be chivalrous, Alec."

 

I smirked. "Chivalry is dead, Max." And thinking about what we had done to break her bed in the first place… my resolve started to waver.

 

No. I'd managed to get through this once without having the shit kicked out of me, and now we seemed to be okay, in spite of a week of avoidance and guilt. There was no way in hell I was going to have that kind of luck twice.

 

"Goodnight, Max." I backed into my bedroom, closed the door, laid down on the bed, and tried to think the unsexiest thoughts I could. White in a thong. Logan in his exoskeleton. Normal in… well, Normal in anything.

 

I was almost asleep when I heard the door open, and felt a warm body slide under the covers next to me. Beyond objecting, I threw an arm over Max's waist, pulled her close, and drifted off.

 

* * *

 

_we need the rain to wash away our bad luck  
U2, "Electrical Storm (William Orbit Mix)"_

_  
_

* * *

 

I woke up to an empty bed and a headache. It took me a few seconds to remember why.

 

Shit. Was it just a dream? I couldn't remember ever dreaming anything quite like that before – most of my dreams involved twins and coconut oil – but hey, there's a first time for everything.

 

I padded out to the living room. No, there were the empty bottles on the coffee table. She'd been here, and now she was gone.

 

Fine. So she was gone. Wasn't like it was a huge, crushing disappointment or anything.

 

At least the power had come back on. I checked in the fridge. Unfortunately, it hadn't come back on soon enough for my ice cream – all I had now was Rocky Road soup. Damn. I pulled out the carton, shut the freezer – and saw the note taped to the door.

 

_Alec-  
Thanks for the drink.  
You still owe me a bed. Something sturdier for next time.  
-Max_

 

I grinned.

 

I _do_ rule.


	4. Sequel: Pretend to Be Nice

**Pretend to Be Nice**

**  
**

* * *

 

_why do you do what you do to me, baby? / shaking my confidence / driving me crazy  
you know if i could, i'd do anything for you / please don't ignore me, 'cause you know i adore you  
Josie and the Pussycats, "Pretend to Be Nice"_

_  
_

* * *

 

Considering what a mess we made of it to start with, Max and I weren't so bad at this whole "relationship" thing. I would even go so far as to state that we had exceeded expectations, since my honest expectations – and, most likely, her's – had been that we would kill each other no later than the second week.

 

But nearly four months has passed since Max had gone into heat, and no one had died yet. No one had even been maimed. How impressive was that?

 

My running theory for our success was chemistry – I mean, we fought all the time, but she was so fucking _sexy_ when she yelled at me, and then we would wind up in bed and all would be forgiven – but Max tended to lay the reason for our success in her "boundaries". The only way things could possibly work, she had said, was if we set up rules early on and stuck to them. Max had unwound a little with the regular physical gratification I was bestowing on her, but she was still Max.

 

First of all, we were absolutely not dating. I was fine with that. I had my doubts that she and I would ever be able to agree on a movie to go see, anyway. No, as it stood, our relationship was pretty much the same as it had been in the past – working together, hanging out at Crash from time to time, sniping back and forth – except now, we were hooking up two or three times a week to have absolutely mind-blowing sex.

 

Best relationship _ever_. Hands down.

 

The second boundary, Max had said, was that no one should know that we're hooking up. That seemed like a good idea on the surface (why kill Normal with the news?) but somehow, in practice, it didn't seem to work out that well. Original Cindy, for instance, could hardly be kept out of the loop, especially since she insisted we not "do the nasty" while she was in the adjoining room (apparently we're noisy – I was beginning to get nasty notes left on my door from the other renters in my building – but it isn't like it's my fault the walls are made of paper). Sketchy was dim, but even _he_ noticed the time I came back from lunch break with Max's bra hanging out of my pants leg.

 

As it stood, quite possibly Normal was the _only_ one who didn't know that Max and I "were doing something that isn't technically dating." Of course, we still pretended. We're very good at pretending.

 

When Max had finished with her spiel that day, she had looked at me nervously, as though she expected me to argue on principle. I hadn't. I told her they were very sensible ideas, given the situation. I only had one addendum.

 

She had to end it with Logan.

 

Whether we were "dating" or "doing something that isn't technically dating", having Rollerboy's shadow over my shoulder would seriously crimp my enjoyment of the situation.

 

I never found out what happened exactly, but a few days later she got a page from Logan, disappeared, then came home and locked herself in her room for a few days. When she came out, she was back to her old self again - but she didn't talk about what had happened, and I didn't ask. If she was still carrying a torch for him, I didn't want to know. After all, since we weren't "dating", it wasn't my place to know.

 

Right. Sure. Whatever.

 

The important thing was, he stopped paging her or showing up at Crash, so I was spared having to analyze the deeper meaning of that ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever Logan was around. Probably it was jealousy, but the jealousy was probably an indication of some bigger and potentially more explosive emotion, and that was just a road I was not interested in traveling.

 

So, now, we had a "thing." I didn't really know what that "thing" was, but it involved lots of sex and it meant Max hit me less often, so why think too hard about it? A good thing is a good thing.

 

And since we were still pretending like we weren't together, I still went to strip clubs with Sketchy on a semi-regular basis – to keep up appearances. Because, I had reasoned to Max, if I stopped hanging out at seedy nightspots, everyone would instantly know that I was either Involved or maybe had entered the priesthood. She had rolled her eyes, which was as close to a "Yes, Alec, you make perfect sense" as I ever got.

 

Which meant on a Friday night like this one, I got to hang out at one of the above-mentioned seedy nightspots, drinking a beer and enjoying the dances, watching Sketchy get shot down by cocktail waitress after cocktail waitress.

 

And I wasn't even doing anything wrong!

 

Did I mention this was the best relationship _ever_?

 

* * *

 

 _then he disappears for a week at a time / and then he shows up just like everything's fine  
_ _i don't get what goes on in his mind / but i'm tired of hearing his same stupid lines_

_  
_

* * *

 

I knocked on Max's door. After a few minutes, OC answered with scary bed-head hair, glaring out at me. "Boy, you keep showin' up here in the middle of the night lookin' for some tail, and Original Cindy's gonna kick your sorry transgenic ass, you understand?"

 

"It is not the middle of the night," I said indignantly. "It's…" I checked my watch. "Huh." Three AM. How'd that happen?

 

"Why do I even bother?" OC grumbled, but the question seemed to be rhetorical. Anyway, she let me in and stomped back to her room, thankfully without making good on her threat to kick my ass. Sure, I was a trained solider, but OC is genuinely frightening.

 

It's possible that my middle-of-the-night routine was tiresome for others. But, like any other red-blooded young man, an evening of lap dances and thongs made me desire female company. I could certainly get what I wanted from one of the wearers of the thongs, but, momentarily distracting though they were, they wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as my X-5 compatriot.

 

Besides, since Max hardly ever slept, it didn't matter what hour I turned up.

 

Her Ninja was in the living room of her apartment, so she was home. Some nights when I came over, she would be out doing her lone-wolf-in-the-shadows thing. Great for clearing her head, not so good for clearing mine. And I hadn't seen her for a few days, so being unaware of her schedule, I was lucky to catch her on an indoors night.

 

I rapped on her bedroom door, then pushed it open. "Ma-ax…"

 

I had been hoping she would be in her waterbed (my replacement), warm and inviting, possibly wearing something with lace. No such luck. Empty bed. I glanced around.

 

Light leaked out into the darkened bedroom from under the closed bathroom door. Tapping on the wood, I called, "Max? You there?"

 

The door opened, and in a blur, a small fist connected solidly with my face.

 

" _Fuck_!" I reeled back, grabbing my nose. "Jeez, what the hell was that for?"

 

For a five-foot-three girl wearing a camisole and bikini undies, Max looked amazingly like a rampaging rhinoceros. She probably wouldn't appreciate the comparison. "Because you are a _rat bastard_."

 

"True." I gingerly felt the bridge of my nose. Nothing seemed broken, but damn, it hurt. Abbreviated training or not, she could throw one hell of a punch. "But you knew that when we hooked up, so why hit me now?"

 

"Cute. Very cute." She stalked out of the bathroom. "You haven't answered your cell all night."

 

What? "The battery died. I left it home. What does that have to do with anything?"

 

She glared at me and I was surprised I didn't burst into flames on the spot. "Well, if you had been _home_ , instead of out ogling skinny little bimbos, then maybe I could have gotten in touch with you."

 

"Probably so, yes." Was this some kind of possessive thing? Max had never gotten up in arms about my libido, as long as it stuck to the look-but-don't-touch routine, but maybe she was switching up on me. "Is that what this is about?"

 

"No," she snapped.

 

So much for that theory. "Okay, so I've done something to piss you off. Want to fill me in?"

 

Max crossed her arms, which, incidentally, made her camisole ride up and exposed another inch of mocha flesh around her abdomen. She'd filled out a little lately, and it worked for her. "Yeah. You're a _rat bastard_."

 

I tried to focus, since this was getting nowhere fast. "Was there a reason you wanted to get in touch with me, other than to break my nose?"

 

"Seemed like a good enough reason to me."

 

Well, screw this, there was just no talking to her in this mood. "Well, next time you want to knock me around some, I'll be sure to drop whatever I'm doing," I said acidly, taking off my shirt. "Get undressed."

 

"No!"

 

I blinked. "Why not?"

 

Max gave me her 'wow, you're even _dumber_ than I thought' look. "We're fighting, and I am _not_ having sex with you."

 

That… did not compute. "Why not?" I repeated blankly.

 

"Because I'm not! Normal couples don't have sex while they're fighting!"

 

Huh? "Um, Max, not only are we not a couple, by _your_ insistence, might I add, but we would never be a _normal_ couple. Besides, we _always_ have sex while we're fighting." Her arms stayed crossed. No entry. "Okay then, how about we _pause_ fighting, have sex, and then we'll go back to whatever battle this is you've started?"

 

She rolled her eyes. "You are _such_ an idiot."

 

I was so confused. "Seriously, are we not going to have sex?"

 

Max was almost vibrating in anger. It was really, really hot, and sending my brain – well, both my brains – all kinds of mixed messages. "That's what caused all this in the first place. You and your stupid fucking… _maleness_."

 

"Right on," came a tired voice from the opposite room.

 

I gritted my teeth. "Is someone going to let me know what's happening here? 'Cause if not, I'm going home. I wasn't planning on settling for beer and porn tonight, but I'll make do."

 

In a very controlled motion, Max picked up her cell phone from the bedside table and handed it to me. "Here. Call your voicemail."

 

Punching in the number, I scowled at her and listened.

 

_You have five unheard messages._

 

_First message, sent 5:56 PM._

 

_"Alec? Hey. It's me. Give me a call when you get this. It's important."_

 

_End of message. Second message, sent 7:35 PM._

 

_"Seriously. Call me."_

 

_End of message. Third message, sent 9:12 PM._

 

 _"Pick up. If you're ignoring me, I swear to God, I'll kick your ass. I might do that, anyway. This is really, **really**_ _important."_

 

_End of message. Fourth message, sent 10:48 PM._

 

_"Alec?"_

 

_End of message. Fifth message, sent 12:23 AM._

 

_"Okay, fine. Don't answer. I'll just ask your voicemail. Voicemail, you wouldn't happen to know if pregnancy tests work on X-5s, or if there's something funky in our DNA that just make them always turn out positive, do you? Like, make thirteen or fourteen tests turn positive? Those are really, really expensive, by the way, and you are paying me ba—"_

 

The phone slipped out of my suddenly numb hand, and my voicemail turned off with a click.

 

* * *

 

 _i'm your late night head rush_ _/ ace high royal flush / red velvet orange crush / you just don't impress me much  
Josie and the Pussycats, "Three Small Words"_

_  
_

* * *

 

Everything was fuzzy.

 

"Deep breaths. Take deep breaths."

 

I sat down hard on the bed, and then Max's hand was on the back of my neck, holding my head between my knees. The world came back into focus while she stroked my hair. It took a few minutes before I was able to speak, and when I figured out what to say…

 

"Holy shit."

 

…possibly it was not the most comforting, reassuring statement I'd ever uttered to her.

 

A sigh. "Thanks, Alec. That helps."

 

Okay. Gotta calm down. Look at this rationally, like a soldier, with an objective. Need to take the next tactically logical step… And clearly, the next tactically logical step was complete panic.

 

"Holy _fucking_ shit."

 

Max patted me on the back, not particularly gently. "Y'know, you're _wonderful_ in a crisis situation. Manticore trained you well."

 

Hrmph. "Put me in a room with six enemy soldiers and an egg-timer, and we'll see who's good in a crisis situation. This, on the other hand…" I gesticulated in her general direction, unable to find the right words. "Are you, you know, sure?"

 

She looked at me strangely. "No. I have no idea."

 

"How can you have no idea?" My voice went up an octave. "It's your body!"

 

"Yeah, and it didn't come with an instruction manual!" Max's voice shook with frustration. "You took Manticore sex-ed, right? I thought _you_ would know."

 

I snorted incredulously. "Sure, Max. Take off your pajamas and grab me a flashlight, and I'll call up inside and wait for a response. I'm sure that will work." She smacked me on the arm, which I probably deserved. "Look, they didn't exactly cover this stuff back on base, you know? Hell, I'm surprised the Dr. Frankensteins and their geneticist Igors even let your plumbing _work_."

 

"Yeah, me too," she muttered. "I mean, I never got my period or anything, like the ordinary girls. Aside from the heat…" A helpless shrug. "I didn't think I worked like that. Didn't seem like something I had to worry about."

 

A slightly lost look crossed her face and I put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder, her curls brushing my chin. It still amazed me that she did that, sometimes. I wondered if she had ever leaned against anyone else, and if they knew how rare it was, if they knew what an incredible privilege they'd been given.

 

After a few minutes, a thought floated by. "If you never get your, um, thing," ('menstrual cycle' not being words that casually trip off my tongue) "then why did you take tests?"

 

"I couldn't get my jeans over my hips." Max waived a hand at the offending pants, which were balled up in the corner. "I knew I'd been gaining weight, but I've _never_ changed pant sizes, and then I thought about it and…" Another helpless shrug. "I got one from a pharmacist I know, who supplies me with some stuff. After I took it, I thought there was a mistake. I went back and bought every one she had."

 

"And they were all positive?" I asked, already knowing the answer. She nodded. "And you're sure you read them right?" A Look. "Right, right, sorry."

 

Logic. Focus on the logic. "It's entirely plausible that there's something in your DNA that produces gonadotropin and causes you to test positive. It might not mean anything at all."

 

"You're right." She nodded her dark head, and said more firmly, "You're right. It might not mean anything. I'm a science project. Who knows what the hell types of hormones are in my blood."

 

"Precisely." Max was admitting I was right. I choked back the urge to gloat. "There's no cause to panic yet."

 

"Right." For a moment, she looked relieved. Then her eyes flicked back to the jeans in the corner, and that line reappeared between her eyebrows.

 

"Maybe you're just getting fat," I offered, hesitantly. But I knew before the words left my mouth that that wasn't right.

 

Max didn't buy it either. "We're X-5s. If what we ate messed with our looks, then the pork rinds you snork on a daily basis would have you in a muumuu."

 

"Pork rinds are a perfectly acceptable part of a balanced diet."

 

"Not when it's balanced with scotch and Rocky Road."

 

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one gaining weight."

 

"No." She frowned. "You're not."

 

She glanced down, and we both focused speculatively on her stomach. She had definitely put on weight, but it wasn't soft, pudgy fat – her midriff was just as smooth and firm as before. It was just… convex, instead of concave.

 

Definitely a bad sign. Especially since even I, with a fairly limited sphere of knowledge about reproduction beyond the first step, knew that if a woman was starting to show, then she'd been knocked up for awhile.

 

"It could have a tail, you know," Max said solemnly, still staring down at her navel.

 

I blinked. "What?"

 

"We're not human. We're cat and shark and who knows what the fuck else…"

 

"There's some bear, I'm pretty sure," I supplied helpfully.

 

"Yeah. So there's a lot of mixed-up, whack genetics involved here." She looked at me in all seriousness, a slight sheen of hysteria in her eyes. "I'm just saying, we should be prepared. In case it has a tail. I wouldn't want to be surprised."

 

Uh-oh. Max was starting to go bye-bye. "That's… very true. However, let's just take one step at a time, shall we? We'll worry about tails later." Much, _much_ later. There was plenty to worry about first. Especially since I didn't have a good answer for her. I mean, shit, what if it _did_ have a tail?

 

"Right." She took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Right. We can handle this. We're trained to take out rogue nations with rubber bands and a paper clip. This is easy. We can do this."

 

"Exactly." Wish I felt as confident as she was sounding. But I didn't think she felt as confident as she sounded, either. "We need to develop a plan."

 

"Yes. A plan. Okay."

 

We flopped backwards on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was a good thinking position. And, sure enough, after a few minutes, an idea came to me. "Right, I got it."

 

* * *

 

 _a black cherry paradise_ _/ half the sugar, twice the spice / i don't want to treat you nice_

_  
_

* * *

 

"This is the stupidest idea you've ever had," Max spat, glaring at me from the examining table.

 

Privately, I might have agreed with her, but I sure as hell wasn't going to admit it. "Really? The stupidest? What about cage-fighting?" I bit out, examining the machine. We were both pretty tense.

 

"That was stupid. But not as stupid as this. At least you made money from that," she grumbled, rubbing gel onto her belly.

 

"Do you have a better idea? And I'm going to remember you said that."

 

"Fine. Remember it. See if I ca-" she broke off at the wail of a siren outside.

 

It was a cop car, maybe three, four blocks away from the doctor's office. Max and I didn't breathe, didn't move, probably didn't blink until we heard it whiz by and speed off into the night.

 

Someone else's misfortune to be hunted tonight. Not ours.

 

At least, I didn't think it would be ours. We'd come in through the roof of the building, and I'd been as careful not to trip an alarm as I'd ever been in my life. In theory, it shouldn't have been that hard – it was four in the morning, the doctor's office was deserted, and all we needed to do was use the ultrasound and get back out. Simpler than trying to steal Sammy's baseball, right? Except my hands were shaking so badly that it took three tries to pick the lock to the examining room.

 

After all, a baseball's just a baseball. This was an attempt to find out… well… best not to think about that too closely.

 

Point being, I was wound up tighter than a nun in a strip club. And Max wasn't doing much better.

 

I flipped a few buttons, and the machine turned on with a mild hum. Max looked at it suspiciously, half-reclined on the examining table. "Are you sure you know how to use that thing?"

 

I grinned at her. "C'mon, Max – what don't I know how to do?" I got a Look for that one. "Well, I've never used one to look for… well… what we're looking for before. But it can't be that much harder than using it to find bullet shrapnel, right?"

 

"Manticore taught you how to find shrapnel with an ultrasound?" Max said, raising an eyebrow. "Wasn't that something for the medics?"

 

"Sure." A few more switches tossed. I sure hoped they did what I thought they did. "We all got a little basic first aid training, you know."

 

"This is basic?"

 

I shrugged. "Well, I don't know how to do brain surgery or anything. 'Course, I'd give it a shot if the money was right. Can't be that hard. A few snips here, some grey matter realigned there… it would probably all work out in the end."

 

"If I'm ever in a position where you might give me brain surgery, I think I'll just opt to suffer and die."

 

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Max." I examined the ultrasound. The screen lit up, casting a creepy glow in the dark room. "Okay, I think we're ready to go."

 

Max lay back, obviously trying like hell not to show how panicked she was. I could sympathize. "Do you know what you're looking for?"

 

I put the doo-hickey on her stomach. "Of course." No reason to tell her that this was the oldest ultrasound machine I'd ever used, it was next to nothing like the ones I'd trained with at Manticore, and I was only about sixty percent certain I was doing this right. That would be one of those little details that would upset her. "If we see something that looks like a little person, then there's a little person in there."

 

"And if we don't?"

 

I glanced away from the screen. "Ever seen 'Alien'?"

 

"Thanks. That's helpful." Max made a face, looking at her abdomen. "This is really slimy."

 

"Well, sorry, my slime-free appointments all get booked three weeks in advance," I muttered, still watching the screen. Lots of black and white nothing, as far as I could see. Of course, looking for flesh in flesh had to be different from looking for lead in flesh, or steel in flesh, or anything else.

 

Something flashed along the monitor, and I slowed my movements down. Brought them to a stop a few inches below her navel. That was…

 

"Is that a head?" Max said, rather casually, as though she was talking about the weather.

I looked closer. A head, and a shadow of a hand. It was sucking its thumb. "It would appear to be so, yes."

 

"Well… huh."

 

"Yeah."

 

"…That's that, I guess."

 

"I guess."

 

We sat for several minutes in silence, contemplating the screen, watching our offspring obliviously suck on its thumb. It occurred to me that maybe I was supposed to be thinking something deep, something profound about life and family and the great circle of life. But all I could think was that it had a really gigantic head, and that while that head was on its way out, Max was going to grab me and break my spine for doing this to her.

 

"Do you see a tail?" Max interrupted my reverie.

 

I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out anything tail-like. "No. But then, I don't see an ass, either."

 

We spent a moment contemplating all the various implications of _that._

 

"So… do you know anything about babies?" she continued, in that oddly casual voice. An oddly casual Max always meant she was staving off panic by the skin of her teeth.

 

"Not a damn thing," I admitted. "You?"

 

She shrugged. "Nope."

 

Another silence. One I spent thinking about what we do now. And what my, er, responsibilities were to the situation. I could certainly offer to do my part. This was definitely at least half my fault, after all.

 

She wasn't saying anything. Was she thinking I was going to run off at the first opportunity?

 

I wouldn't do that.

 

I wouldn't do that no matter what, but I definitely wouldn't do that to _Max._ I didn't even _want_ to do that to Max.

 

Or was she hoping I would? Was she just waiting for the opportunity to say " _You worthless ass, how could you do this to me, I never want to see you again"_ or, even worse, " _You could never look after our kid, I'm going to Logan right now and begging his forgiveness, he'll take care of us…"_ Anything but that.

 

Of course, that was all assuming she even _wanted_ the kid. What if she didn't? It would be part me and part her, and therefore, it stood to reason that it would be an unbearable nightmare of a brat. Who could blame her for not wanting it? Even if… well… I didn't exactly _want_ it, but I didn't exactly _not_ want it…

 

Max was looking at me curiously.

 

I cleared my throat, feeling the need to be reassuring. "You know, I, um… I won't, you know, leave you to, er…" This was awkward. "That is, I'm not a complete jerk, you know." I stopped, hoping she'd get the hint.

 

She still looked confused. "Yeah, I know. You're a rat bastard, but you're not a complete jerk. Why?"

 

That hadn't really been my point. "I mean, you… you don't need to worry about me, um… leaving, or anything. And I am capable of doing what's supposed to be done in this sort of… situation." Oh, hell, there was no hope for it now. "I mean, I know that it seems like something I would do, but I wouldn't, because I'm not a complete jerk. I'm a rat bastard, but even rats look after their own, you know?"

 

Wow. That didn't come out at all like I had intended it.

 

"Alec… what the hell are you talking about?"

 

"I'm not really sure," I admitted. "I just wanted to… I mean, I…" Oh, _why_ did she have to make it this hard? And how was she managing to make me trip over my tongue just by looking at me? I hated it when she did that. Women aren't fair. _This_ woman in particular.

 

Damn. If _she_ was like that, what would our kid be like? I hoped it wasn't a girl. I'd be owned.

 

"Alec," Max interrupted my increasingly spastic line of thought. "Turn off that damn machine and come here."

 

I did as she asked. You don't say no to Max when she uses that voice.

 

She sat up on the table and pulled my head to hers. "Now, listen," she said, in a surprisingly rational tone. "You are allowed this time to freak out. Later, I will wig, and you will calm me. And then we will both be calm and rational transgenic science projects who will think calmly and rationally about their expected upcoming new science project. Dealio?" I nodded, and she smiled. "Okay then."

 

"Are you going to leave me?" The words escaped before I could smother them.

 

Max shook her head. "Wasn't planning on changing that many diapers on my own." A huge weight lifted off of my chest. "Are you leaving?"

 

I smirked at her. "And let you raise the fruit of my loins? What the hell would you teach that kid? Who would he turn to as a positive male influence? Sketchy? Normal?"

 

"Well, as long as we're clear on the matter." She extended her hand, and we shook on it. And then, to my surprise, she leaned forward and kissed me.

 

"Now let's get the hell out of here."

 

* * *

 

_if you would just pretend to be nice / everything in my life would be all right_

_  
_

* * *

 

**Six months later.**

 

Max had always bragged about her shark DNA, about how she never had to sleep, was always at the highest alert level of consciousness, yada yada yada.

 

Well, the kid changed _that._ Max now slept like a rock whenever she had the opportunity. Which would normally give me cause to rejoice, because I liked sleeping in bed with her, when she was warm and pliable and not arguing with me.

 

However, if _she_ was sleeping, it meant _I_ had to be up with the kid. He'd inherited Max's much vaunted shark DNA, and had slept maybe six hours in the six weeks since his birth.

 

Which was why, at two AM, instead of being out at a strip club, I was standing next to a crib. "Hi there. Are you sure, _really_ sure that you don't want to sleep?"

 

The baby furrowed his brow at me, sucking on a very wet fist. He'd only recently begun to achieve facial expressions, which, I had to admit, made him a lot more interesting. It also made him look a lot like Max, which meant I was being glared at twice as often.

 

I kind of liked it.

 

"Okay, fine. But sleep is nice. Ask your mom."

 

Suck, suck, suck.

 

"Are you hungry?"

 

Suck. Kick.

 

"Are you bored?"

 

Suck. Wiggle.

 

"Yeah, me too. I could pick you up and we could walk around for awhile."

 

Suck, suck, suck.

 

"I'll take that as a yes. But you have to _got_ to learn to talk. Or work out some kind of hand-signal system." I scooped him up, his head resting against my shoulder and his happily-tailless butt in the crook of my arm, and we started strolling around the living room of my – er, _our_ – apartment.

 

Max and I living together actually didn't go as badly as I had feared it would. It made lots of logical sense, and thus far, we'd only had five or six screaming matches. All before the kid was born, of course. We were both way too exhausted to fight now.

 

We rigged up a pretty good system, though, a plan worthy of Manticore minds. We moved in together, we took shifts in the night watching him, and Max got in touch with some sister named Jace about man-in-black-proofing a baby's room. We kept working at Jam Pony, and I kept robbing for supplemental income. And, of all things, Normal watched the kid behind the desk while we were out on runs.

 

This had required a lot less cajoling on my part than I anticipated. Turns out, Normal's a sucker for babies. Max didn't like it at all, but once I explained the vast benefits of a free babysitter who would happily lay down his life for, well, _me_ – she got used to it. Though we have a standing agreement that if the kid's first word is "Bip", she's going to kick my ass so hard that I'll never walk straight again.

 

Besides, when he was older, we could always let Joshua watch him. As things stood right now, Dog-boy was a little lacking in fine motor control for things like diaper changes. We found that out fast.

 

The kid yawned, drooling on my chest. A yawn was a good sign. Maybe he'd nap tonight. For a full, oh, half-hour. Maybe.

 

"Is he going to sleep?"

 

I jumped. Max had snuck up on me. I hated when she did that. "You know, you're not doing reconnaissance work – you could let the floor squeak a little when you walk on it."

 

Max smiled. "I move on little cat feet, what can I say." She walked past me into the kitchen, not making any noise on the linoleum, no doubt just to make a point. "Thanks for watching him, I think I got a whole three hours of sleep. I feel a hundred times better."

 

"Yes, well, he's a horrible troublemaker, but you know how I can't help but suffer for you." The troublemaker in question burbled.

 

"He got the troublemaking from you," she said, taking a swig of milk.

 

"Please. You're not exactly Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes."

 

"Uh-huh." Max looked at us for a moment, with that soft expression that made me do whatever she wanted. "Come on, come to bed with me. He'll be all right in the crib for awhile."

 

"Are you sure?" Sometimes, when left alone, he cried. And when he cried, the windows came damn close to shattering. I thought that it must be come kind of latent Manticore trick until Normal assured me that all babies sound like that.

 

"Yeah. You look like death. Come on."

 

I passed the kid over to Max, who cooed at him until he gave her a sloppy grin and then put him in his crib. "You know, Max, you really ought to name him."

 

She frowned as we walked back to the bedroom. "I know, I know."

 

"It's just that Normal's been calling him 'Buddy', and I _really_ don't want that to stick."

 

"I know."

 

"You didn't have any trouble naming everyone else—"

 

"I _know_ , okay?" She blew out an exasperated breath. "It's easier naming… well… others. I keep trying, but I can't think of anything for him that seems _right_."

 

We laid back in bed, and I kissed her neck. "Hey, it's fine. You'll think of something. You always do. Even when you shouldn't."

 

"Shut up." She looked up at the ceiling, distracted. Which meant it was a perfect opportunity for me to move from the curve of her neck to the swell of her breasts, and my hand to trace the shape of her hip…

 

…until I was interrupted by a loud wail from the other room.

 

I flopped over on the bed with a sigh of disgust, accompanied by a frustrated moan from Max. "Okay, one of these nights OC is going to watch the kid, and you are I are going to have dirty animal sex for eight hours straight, understand?"

 

"Sounds good to me." Max rolled out of bed. "Get some sleep, if you can through all his squalling."

 

I buried my head under a pillow. "Can we name him Squall?" I said, grumbling.

 

Max paused in the doorframe. "Yes. Yes we can." And from the other room, I heard her say, "All right, you can either sleep, or I'm putting that damn Barney tape on again until you break under the torture and your subconscious forces you into a coma. And your name is Squall, for the record. Thank your daddy when you learn to speak."

 

I blinked. "You know I was kidding, right?"

 

"Too late!" she called back. "If the other kids make fun of him, it's your fault, not mine!"

 

"Great." I closed my eyes, thinking that my life was a lot easier back at Manticore. Hell, it was a lot easier when I just boned every girl I met.

 

But, I had to concede as I drifted off to sleep, this life was a bit more interesting.

 

 

 ** _the end_**.

 

* * *

 

_**A/N** : My writing this whole story had a lot to do with my interest in fanfiction, which is largely disproving the myth of the cliché. A lot of people are anti-cliché – stories that have been done by a million different people, and rarely well. "Max goes into heat around Alec" and "Max and Alec have a baby" are examples of those clichés._

 

_My point is, it isn't the cliché that's necessarily bad, although sometimes that's the case. It's that they're hard to keep in character. A cliché can be quite good, as long as the characters act believably. That was my goal here, to make Max and Alec behave as believably as possible in this situation. I hope I'm succeeding._

 

_Oh, and a cookie to whoever figures out where I got the baby's name._

* * *

**_Notice : Missing scenes located in [The Carpe Felis Series: Missing Scenes](http://bit.ly/M7ZM30)._ **


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